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DENVER — John Blackwell scored 19 points, Steven Crowl added 18 and No. 3 seed Wisconsin used a strong second half to pull away from No. 14 Montana for an 85-66 victory in a first-round game in the East Region on Thursday.

John Tonje contributed 15 points, Xavier Amos finished with 11 and Nolan Winter scored 10 for the Badgers (27-9), who will play the winner of the matchup between VCU and BYU on Saturday.

“Second half, we got it going a little bit on the inside,” Crowl said. “Obviously we knew we had the size advantage and anted to take advantage of that.”

Kai Johnson and Te’Jon Sawyer each scored 15 points and Joe Pridgen finished with 12 for Montana, which was outscored 45-34 in the second half.

The Grizzlies (25-10) dropped to 2-14 all-time in the NCAA Tournament, last winning a first-round game in 2006.

“We went into this with a ton of confidence,” Montana coach Travis DeCuire said. “For stretches of the game we showed that we could play with them. We just couldn’t sustain it. We had long stretches where I don’t think we were executing very well on either side of the ball. I think a good basketball team met a better basketball team today.”

Wisconsin led 51-42 with 16:17 remaining before a 3-pointer from Johnson along with a steal and layup from Money Williams got the Grizzlies within 51-47.

The Badgers’ Carter Gilmore answered with a 3-pointer, drew an offensive foul and then hit another jumper to start a 14-3 run and a commanding 65-50 lead near the midway point of the second half.

“Every time we were starting to bust it open, we get it to 11, they’d hit a 3. We got it to seven, they hit a 3,” Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said. “We were finally able to pull away on the back half of the second half.”

After a Williams layup for Montana, four free throws by Tonje gave Wisconsin an 18-point lead with 8:24 left. Montana responded with an 8-2 run to make it 74-62 with 5:11 left and had a chance to get within 10, but Sawyer missed a 3-point attempt. Crowl and Blackwell hit shots for Wisconsin to stretch the lead to 79-62 with 3:04 left.

The Badgers led by as many as 21 points down the stretch.

Wisconsin used a 9-2 run midway through the first half to take a 24-15 lead on Tonje’s second 3-pointer of the game. Montana closed within five points but Crowl’s 3-pointer and Blackwell’s driving layup extended the advantage to 34-24 before the Badgers took a 40-32 lead into halftime.

–Michael Kelly, Field Level Media